AC

When Alba Colon checks into her hotel, she immediately turns on the local news to get a lay of the land. "I want to know what's going on in the city," says Colon. "What are the people like here?" Next morning, it's off to the racetrack. Colon, 43, is General Motors Racing's Chevrolet program manager for NASCAR's top-tier Sprint Cup Series. As NASCAR's only female brand manager, she oversees engineers who test engines and figure out the designs and tweaks that can shave milliseconds off a driver's time. Colon is at a racetrack near Miami one day, at a meeting in Charlotte the next. Or she might be in Puerto Rico, where she was raised, recruiting young people to follow her path to General Motors and a career in engineering. Never mind the speedway. Traveling so much has helped her develop strategies to shave time off her business trips. "I know where I'm going to park my car so it's straight and simple," says Colon, who lives in Royal Oak, Mich., and flies out of Detroit's...